


my chest is your garden

by taizi



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Gen, M/M, Misunderstandings, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, kitanishi, w some background tanunatsu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-01-05 13:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12190605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi
Summary: In a world where everyone is born with a timer on their wrist counting down to the moment they meet their soulmate, Nishimura Satoru's timer has never moved.His wrist is a line of solid zeros, and it’s been that way forever, and he can’tstandhow lonely he feels sometimes.He doesn’t want anyone else to be lonely, either.





	1. Chapter 1

“I am  _so_ gonna die alone,” Satoru says bleakly. 

Natsume looks startled at the announcement. Atsushi idly turns a page in his book and doesn’t comment. 

“That’s what this means, guys,” Satoru goes on, “that’s  _exactly_ what this means.” 

The timer on his wrist has been broken for as long as he can remember. It sits there like a sadistic reminder, a faint, half-faded  _00:00:00_ that Satoru quite honestly  _hates._

“I’ve never,” Natsume ventures, and hesitates. 

They’ve been neighbors for close to a year now, and for all that they don’t know much about the guy, he’s become a regular fixture in the cozy apartment Satoru and Atsushi share. Still, sometimes, he acts like he isn’t sure he’s allowed to contribute to lazy Sunday afternoon conversation, and all Satoru can do is wait patiently for him to gather his nerve. 

“I mean,” Natsume tries again, “I’ve never heard of something like that. Is that even possible?”

His hand is circled around his own wrist and the numbers nestled there, and it’s obvious what he’s thinking: if even  _he_ could have a soulmate out there in the world somewhere, then surely someone like Satoru must have one, too. 

If only. 

* * *

Satoru wears long sleeves most of the time – stolen out of his roommate’s side of the closet, more often than not – and he deflects soulmate and soulmate-related conversation with all the prowess of someone with years of practice.

But he can’t avoid it entirely.

He stops for lunch at a little cafe near his office, and is just in time to watch as a harried businesswoman and the curly-haired cashier lock eyes and  _meet._ The timers on their wrists, exposed where their arms are extended over the counter to exchange payment for the order, drop to zero. 

It’s powerful, and wonderful, the way the first woman melts and the second lights up like a star, and the rest of the restaurant is smiling down at their plates or at their own company, but Satoru’s stomach twists sickly. 

He leaves without ordering, and doesn’t find his appetite again for the rest of the day. He doesn’t say anything when he gets home but Atsushi can tell. Atsushi can  _always_ tell. And he frowns deeply, pushing back from his desk and abandoning his work to bully Satoru into a seat at the kitchen table. 

Satoru suffers through a plate of microwaved leftovers, and a lecture about his admittedly shitty eating habits to go with it. 

“You did this all through school,” Atsushi says sternly, “and I hated it then, too. You have to  _eat,_ moron. Melon bread and Kit-Kats and whatever else you have stashed in your office doesn’t cut it.”

There’s no easy way to explain  _why_ he couldn’t eat – that sometimes the anxiety gets too big, and sits in the pit of his chest like a stone. That sometimes he thinks too much about the zeros on his arm and what they mean, and wants to lock himself in the bedroom and hide from the world he’s afraid he’s all alone in.

So instead he shrugs, and mumbles through a mouthful of lukewarm noodles, "Sometimes I think the only reason we live together is because it’s easier for you to babysit me this way.”

“ _Someone_ has to,” Atsushi says without missing a beat, but there’s no heat in his eyes, or in the hand that brushes Satoru’s shoulder as Atsushi passes by on his way back to his office. 

* * *

Rapid knocks on the door have Satoru hurrying to open it. Natsume spills inside, looking so visibly distraught that Satoru automatically looks over his shoulder into the hall for some sign of trouble. 

“Natsume, what is it?” Atsushi asks with clear concern, and Natsume thrusts his arm at them by way of answer. 

The numbers on his wrist are moving rapidly, dropping by the second, and Satoru and Atsushi both watch with wide eyes as it  _keeps going._  

“It hasn’t moved in – in  _years,”_ Natsume admits in a soft, thready voice. “When I moved to this city, it actually went  _up._ I never thought – a part of me was always resigned to – but now – “ 

He looks two shades short of terrified. Satoru feels for him,  _aches_ for him, and says, “Hey, listen. Whoever it is, they’re lucky as hell. You’re awesome, Natsume, they’re – man, they’re going to  _love_ you.”

Natsume looks at him with something open and vulnerable in his face, mouth soft and eyes bright. He’s opened up since coming here, but there’s still something fragile about him – this withdrawn, self-conscious guy without any family and nothing but a fat, grumpy cat for company in his quiet apartment across the hall –

Satoru hopes his other half is someone kind, someone patient. Someone who can fill all those empty spaces in Natsume’s life, in his home, in his heart. 

The timer finally slows on the nineteen hour mark. The minutes slow after that, until only the seconds are left steadily ticking by. Natsume is pale and shaken as he runs a hand through his hair. 

Atsushi says, “Stay for dinner.”

“Thank you,” Natsume whispers. 

* * *

The next day, as Satoru and Atsushi are leaving their apartment – bickering amiably about the grocery list and the fastest way to get to the supermarket – they’re greeted by an unfamiliar face. 

He’s tall, with a messy head of dark hair and kind eyes. He stands as though he’s aware of how much space he takes up and wishes it could be less. 

“Hello,” he says, a little too formal, when he notices the two of them noticing him. “Um, we haven’t met. I just moved in – two doors down from you, actually. I’m Tanuma.”

“Nice to meet you,” Atsushi says politely, “I’m Kitamoto and this is Nishimura. Are you new to the city?”

“Yeah, it was – a spur of the moment decision,” Tanuma says. “I’m a, um – photographer,” and Satoru kind of hates the self-conscious way his eyes dip at the admission, as though it’s something he can’t be proud of, “mostly freelance. But the um, the paper here – was hiring. So I applied, and sent in a portfolio, and – here I am.”

He’s awkward, but in an endearing way, like he isn’t used to striking up conversation with strangers but he’s doing his best to make a good impression despite himself. Satoru has known him for all of three minutes and has already decided he’s going to be a great neighbor. 

“Well, we’re happy to have you,” Satoru tells him. “You should come by sometime, show us some of your work!” 

The invitation seems to take him by surprise, but a moment later his face softens with a smile. “Yeah?” 

They make plans to have him over for dinner, and Tanuma looks ten pounds lighter and ten times less anxious than he did when they found him in the first place. 

“You’re too friendly,” Atsushi says dryly, as they wait for the elevator. “One of these days you’re gonna invite a creep right into our house for  _tea_ or something, and honestly I won’t even be shocked.”

“Tanuma isn’t a creep!” 

“I didn’t say  _he_ was!”

But it’s not really that Satoru is  _too friendly_ , or even an especially nice person. It’s just that his wrist is a line of solid zeros, and it’s been that way forever, and he can’t  _stand_ how lonely he feels sometimes. 

He doesn’t want anyone else to be lonely, either. 

* * *

Tanuma is right on time, down to the  _minute._ And since Satoru is fighting with the temperamental rice cooker while Atsushi is busy at the stove when the polite knocks sound at the front door, he calls, “Natsume, will you get that? It’s that Tanuma guy we invited over.”

Natsume’s face is a sickly white as he climbs gracelessly to his feet. His fat cat is tucked into the crook of his arm, like a security blanket, and Satoru pauses long enough to frown at him, worry after him, because that’s an extreme reaction to just getting the door for someone?

But then he sees the flickering activity on Natsume’s wrist, the rapid shifting of numbers that Satoru is too far away to make out, and he grabs Atsushi by the strings of his apron and  _yanks._

 _“Holy shit, Satoru,_ this is  _hot oil – “_

He cuts himself off when he realizes what’s happening.

Natsume stands back to let Tanuma step inside, and Satoru can’t see his face – but the hand he lifts towards Tanuma is trembling, and Tanuma’s expression is dazed and wondering and painful to look at – 

Natsume says “It’s you,” in a small voice, and Tanuma replies, “I’ve waited to meet you for so  _long,”_ and Satoru turns away to give them some privacy, busying himself with the rice again. 

His eyes are burning, but he can blame that on the smoke. 

* * *

Atsushi has worn a thick leather bracelet over his timer for as long as Satoru has known him. It’s not weird – some people are secretive about it, or painfully shy. Satoru has even heard of some people going so far as to tattoo over the timer – it fades, once a person accepts their other half, but there’s a growing community of people who reject the soulmate concept entirely, and ignore the numbers in favor of falling in love freely. 

He thinks that’s admirable and a little bit terrifying in equal measures. 

Satoru wonders, sometimes, if Atsushi belongs to the secretive group or the skeptical one. He doesn’t ask – Atsushi will sometimes rub fingers over the bracelet, and look weary and sad, and even Satoru is tactful enough to know there are some things he should just leave alone – but he still wonders. 

If he could belong to  _anybody,_ he would belong to Atsushi.

And he doesn’t know what he’ll do, the day Atsushi’s soulmate strolls into their lives and takes Atsushi away from him. 

* * *

One day, about a month after his fateful first night in the apartment building the four of them share, Tanuma breaches the same subject Satoru has always avoided: 

“Do you mind my asking, Kitamoto? What does your timer say?” he asks on a comfortable, rainy Tuesday evening, while Natsume messes with his expensive-looking camera and Natsume’s fat calico sleeps in his lap. 

“Oh,” Atsushi says, unbothered. He doesn’t even look up from his phone. “Nothing. It faded a long time ago.”

Satoru chokes on his bubble tea so spectacularly that Natsume actually puts the camera down to lean over and thump him on the back. He and Tanuma are both staring at him but Atsushi is doing that casual oh-did-you-have-a-big-reaction-sorry-I-didn’t-even-notice thing. Satoru isn’t  _about_ to let it slide this time. 

“ _What_?”

“What do you mean ‘what’?” Atsushi gives him an unimpressed look. There’s some fleeting feeling in his eyes that Satoru just misses, something heated or hurt. “It’s been gone for years. It’s not a secret.”

“You – you  _never_ said – “

“You never asked.”

Tanuma and Natsume are looking between them with wide eyes. Satoru feels his hands clench into fists, so tight his fingers ache and his nails bite into his palms. 

“Can I talk to you outside?” he grits out.

“Oh,” Natsume says, “no, we can – Kaname, let’s – “

But Atsushi is already setting his phone aside and rising to his feet, gesturing expansively for Satoru to lead the way. Satoru does his best not to storm out of his own apartment like a pissy teenager, but he isn’t sure if he’s the least bit successful. 

He’s trembling, and waits for Atsushi to close the front door behind him before he bursts out with, “Were you – are you – do you not  _trust_ me? Why wouldn’t you tell me? I tell you everything, I thought – “

“Satchan,” he says tiredly, “it’s not like that.” 

“So you know?” Satoru couldn’t explain the ache in his chest if he  _tried._ “Your other half? You know who they are?”

“I’d know even without the stupid numbers on my wrist.” 

Satoru stares at him, and something in Atsushi’s expression crumbles. He pushes a hand through his hair and looks twice his age, and exhausted, and  _sad._  

“Sometimes – it doesn’t work out, I guess. Sometimes you’re not on the same page. It’s not a perfect system. Not everyone gets a happy ending.”

“Did they – “ Satoru can barely find the words. His heart is a solid lump in his throat. “Did they not want you?”

The question lands like a blow, and that’s not what Satoru meant, he didn’t mean to hurt him, and he’s already opening his mouth to apologize when Atsushi shakes his head. 

A little bit bitter and a little bit broken when he says, “No, he – didn’t feel the same way. But it’s okay,” he adds a moment later. “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be good.”

It sounds like an old, old hurt. A wound he’s used to navigating around, and can almost pretend isn’t there. And Satoru has known him  _all his life,_ has been his roommate since the day they graduated high school together almost ten years ago, and…

he never knew.

* * *

Atsushi is asleep at the kitchen table, and Satoru is washing dinner dishes. The chore is taking longer than usual, because he keeps looking over his shoulder at his friend and ends up scrubbing the same plate for ten minutes as he loses himself in thought.

It’s hard to be objective, given how shamelessly biased he is where Atsushi is concerned, but as far as he’s concerned a person would have to be  _crazy_ not to want a guy like him. 

He would have thought Atsushi’s other half would be a sensible, well-put together sort. And instead they’re – well, probably the worst person in the world, if he’s being honest. 

Who the hell could  _know_ Atsushi and  _not want him?_

Moving on impulse, Satoru abandons the rest of the dishes and strips off his rubber gloves. He sits in the chair across the table from Atsushi and lifts his left hand off the table gingerly enough not to wake him. 

He finds the clasp on that leather bracelet and undoes it, sliding the weathered band away. The skin underneath is smooth and unblemished, an empty place where hopeful numbers should sit. 

Atsushi doesn’t have anyone waiting for him, either. 

And maybe there’s been a secret dream lurking in the farthest corner of Satoru’s heart ever since he was a lonely teenager.

Maybe now he can afford to want it, after all. 

* * *

Atsushi has been staring at the stolen leather bracelet on Satoru’s wrist for the better part of the morning, while doing his best to pretend like he absolutely  _hasn’t_ been staring at it for the better part of the morning.

“Satchan,” he’ll start to say, and then think better of it and bury himself in the morning paper. They’ve become subscribers, now that their friend’s impressive photography regularly decorates the front page. 

Satoru smiles at his hands. When he rubs his wrist now, it’s not a bitter gesture or a longing one as much as it’s affectionate, anticipatory,  _excited._

* * *

“Are you messing with me?” 

Satoru frowns. “Not that I know of?”

Atsushi looks more flustered than Satoru has seen him in years. There’s an almost manic gleam in his eyes, and his hair stands on end from how many times he’s rubbed a careless hand through it. 

“You’re – “ He hesitates, and lowers his voice. “What do you want from me?”

“Well, I wanted to hold your hand, but I didn’t know it was going to put you through an existential crisis.”

“Don’t,” Atsushi says sharply, and Satoru’s humor fades. “You don’t – get to joke about it. You can’t just go back and forth, that’s not fair. I don’t know what you  _want.”_

Satoru has the sinking feeling he got something terribly, terribly wrong. “I thought – maybe, since you didn’t have a soulmate either, we could – ”

“Wait.” Atsushi holds up both hands to stop him mid-word. Then, at length, “ _What_?”

“We’re both,” Satoru says lamely, “you know.” 

“No,” is the frank reply, “that’s – have you really? Have you really thought that – “ Atsushi surges across the room, and snatches Satoru by the shoulders, and says, “What did you think your zero counter  _meant?”_

“That – that I didn’t have anybody?” Satoru blinks past the threatening sting of tears, because Atsushi has never been intentionally cruel, and he probably has a reason for throwing this lifelong hurt back in Satoru’s face. “It’s been on zero for as long as I can remember. I never knew who it was supposed to be. It never even fully faded.”

Atsushi is staring at him as though he’s never seen him from this close before. His fingers bite into Satoru’s arms hard enough to hurt. He doesn’t seem willing to let go.

“We met when we were five years old,” he says, very carefully, “on the first day of kindergarten. My timer was on zero when I came home. I remember, because mom and dad made a big deal about it. They were so excited I could have met my other half so early.” 

Satoru blinks at him. He remembers that day – he spent hours chasing Atsushi around the playground, sharing snacks and making up games, and didn’t want to go home when Kiyoshi walked over from the elementary school to pick him up at the end of the afternoon. 

Is that when it happened? 

“I never,” he whispers, and has to stop and scrape the words together before he can try again. “I didn’t notice. I didn’t even know what the numbers meant until – it must have been third grade? Mom never – she didn’t think it was important – “

Atsushi’s eyes have gone ridiculously soft. He lets go of Satoru’s shoulders to touch the sides of his face instead, as carefully as if he was something impossibly precious. 

“I,” Satoru tries, but his voice wobbles and breaks apart. “I– “ 

“I thought you knew,” Atsushi says quietly. “I thought you knew and it wasn’t what you wanted. I thought that’s why you’ve been so miserable, all these years.” 

He unclasps the bracelet and Satoru watches from far away, like it’s something happening to someone else. The zeros on his arm aren’t the bright hue of everyone else’s, they’re half color, faded and unsubstantial. He’s never known why, always thought it was broken, but – 

“You never knew it was me,” Atsushi says, “you were never sure, so of course they never went away. I should have – I should have  _said_ something, I should have – I’m such an idiot. Satchan, I’m so sorry.”

“I made you think I didn’t  _want_ you,” Satoru all but sobs, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, “I made you think – you’re my favorite person in the whole world, and I hurt you so  _much_ – “

“No you didn’t. I never blamed you for feeling differently, I would never blame you for that. Even if it wasn’t perfect, it was still  _good_.” 

“But I – “ Satoru wishes he was brave enough to look at him, but instead he hides behind his hands like a coward. “I  _didn’t_ feel differently. You were just – something I couldn’t have – because I didn’t know you were  _mine.”_

For a long moment, his words are greeted by a silence that threatens to deafen him. Then Atsushi is pulling Satoru’s hands away from his face and holding his wrists captive and leaning in to kiss his forehead, his eyelids, the tip of his nose, the corner of his mouth.

As if he's saying  _now you know._

* * *

“You two are a  _mess,”_ Natsume tells them over breakfast two days later, in a perfect deadpan that makes Atsushi snort into his coffee.

Compared to the pretty picture Natsume and Tanuma make – the perfect way they came together the moment they met, the way they move as though they’ve never spent a day apart – yeah, Satoru thinks it’s safe to say he and Atsushi are something of a certified disaster. 

He regrets the misunderstanding that caused so much hurt where hurt could have been avoided, and he regrets the sad shadows that lived for so long in Atsushi’s eyes.

But at the same time, Satoru’s been luckier than most – even if five, ten, and fifteen years ago he would  _never_ have believed such a thing. 

He smiles down at his hands, and rubs the bare skin on his left wrist. Seconds later Atsushi is reaching for him – threading their fingers together, lifting Satoru’s hand, and pressing a kiss to the same spot where all his zeros used to be.

“You’re a good mess, though,” Tanuma amends with no small amount of fondness, and Satoru beams at him. 

“The  _best_ _,”_ he clarifies boldly, loved and full of love in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my chest is your garden;  
> and the seeds you planted in my heart  
> are going to be  
> painfully beautiful flowers
> 
> e.e. cummings


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a companion piece to the first chapter, this time about tanuma and natsume

When Kaname actually gets the job offer, he almost turns it down. He only applied in the first place on a whim, and it’s such a  _big_ move, and he’s not the brave, bold kind of person who would leap on an opportunity like this –

But as if sensing his doubts, the counter on Kaname’s wrist moves. It hasn’t so much as flickered in years, and now it starts to go  _up_ instead of down.

And Kaname’s hands move on autopilot, tapping out a return email with his heart in his throat.

 _Thank you,_  he writes, and  _Yes, I can start immediately,_  and  _I look forward to working with you._

The numbers still again. Kaname puts his head in his hands and wonders if it eight a.m. is too early to go back to bed. Then he picks up the phone to call his father and closest friends and inform them he’s moving six hours away, by the end of the week actually, and do they know where he should start looking for affordable sublets in Osaka?

Shibata is still looking up at him like he’s crazy two days later, but he helps Kaname pack with only minimal complaining.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” he asks before he leaves, when Kaname’s apartment has been stripped to bare walls and cardboard boxes and Kaname is wrapping the last of his plates in newspaper. “I mean – this isn’t like you.”

Kaname musters a smile, almost sick with nerves. It  _isn’t_ like him. But –

He looks at the still numbers on his arm and thinks, somehow, this might be the right move to make.

* * *

Or it’s entirely the wrong move.

Kaname gets off the train with his single rolling suitcase and promptly has a panic attack in one of the station bathrooms. He should have thought about this. He’s an idiot and everything is going to be terrible. He’s hours away from his only family, he doesn’t know anyone in this city, he doesn’t know where to go, what is he  _doing_ here?

A text to Shibata finds Kaname on a conference call moments later with both Shibata and Taki, who bully and cajole him respectively back into some semblance of mostly functional human being.

 _“Do you have your inhaler?”_  Shibata demands, prompting Kaname to pat down his pockets and confirm that he does, in fact, have his inhaler.  _“Good. You better take care of yourself, idiot. I swear, if I have to come after you I’m going to be severely annoyed.”_

But he’ll come after Kaname if Kaname needs him to, won’t hesitate to bail on work and hop on a train if he thinks Kaname isn’t okay, and knowing that is a much-needed comfort. Kaname smiles, and his hands, clenched into shaking fists in the fabric of his jeans, finally loose.

He’s in a new place, and hours away from the people who love him, but he isn’t in another country. He isn’t so far removed that he’ll never see them again.

 _“We’ll come see you the second you get settled,”_  Taki tells him kindly.  _“I’m so excited for you! You’re going to do so great!”_

_“Of course he is. Call us back when you get to your creepy Craigslist apartment, Tanuma!”_

Kaname laughs as he hangs up, and the warmth of the laughter stays with him as he braves the busy station and drags his suitcase after him into the sunny streets. With his friends in the front of his mind, it’s that much easier to breathe.

* * *

Kaname isn’t sure when the rest of his things are due to be delivered, so getting settled into his modest apartment is the work of about five minutes. In that it takes him four minutes to get the door unlocked, and once inside he shoves his suitcase into the bedroom, shrugs out of his jacket, and collapses face-first into the musty sofa the previous tenant left behind.

The city traffic is loud even through the closed window, and someone in the hallway is banging violently on a door.

Home, Kaname thinks, and rolls onto his back. He stretches his arms out above him, and tugs back the sleeve on his left arm to see if his counter is still –

“Oh,” he whispers, as the numbers continue to spin lower and lower with dizzying speed.

Kaname sits up slowly, tucking his legs underneath him, and cradles his wrist closer with a careful hand. He sits that way for a long time, until shadows stretch across the floor as noon slinks closer to evening and his phone fills the room with Shibata’s ringtone because he forgot to call his friends back. 

The counter finally slows somewhere around the nineteen hour mark, and only the seconds are left ticking by.

 _19:14:38_ and he’s never, ever been this close.

Home, he thinks again, with a hope so heavy it could probably crush him.

* * *

Two of his neighbors turn out to be young men his own age, who introduce themselves as Kitamoto and Nishimura. They’re kind and welcoming, despite Kaname’s terribly awkward first impression, and Nishimura is almost relentlessly friendly. Kaname can’t help thinking he and Taki would get along like a house on fire, and the similarities between them have Kaname warming to Nishimura almost immediately.

“If you just moved in, you probably have no food at your place,” Nishimura says with all the certainty of someone having lived this truth himself at one point. “We can show you around and stuff later, but for now you should come over for dinner tonight! We’re making omurice. We’re  _awesome_ at omurice.”

“It’s the only thing we know how to cook,” Kitamoto amends dryly, and steers Nishimura away by the shoulders. “Sorry for taking up so much of your time. We’ll see you tonight.”

They’re a soulmate pair if Kaname has ever seen one, and he watches them bicker their way down the hall with a smile. Rubs the numbers on his wrist with an ache and a longing, and only a small amount of light-headed fear.

 _“I’m not surprised you’ve made friends already,”_ his father says kindly when Kaname calls him with what little news he has to offer about his first day in Osaka.  _“You were always a popular boy.”_

 _That_ is a bold-faced lie, but Kaname was certainly never without friends, and that’s probably what his father means anyway. His eyes are glued to the counter on his wrist, as they always are anymore, and he’s dying to bring it up at the same time he’s terrified of jinxing the whole thing away.

He’ll keep it to himself a little while longer. There’s only four hours left to go, anyway.

* * *

Kaname stands outside his neighbor’s door with his fist poised to knock and thinks this is probably exactly where he’s meant to be standing, because the numbers on his arm are still moving, and it’s fourteen seconds, and he knocks, and now it’s nine, and now six –

And the door opens, and Kaname pulls his eyes away from the zeros on his wrist. It isn’t Nishimura or Kitamoto waiting there to greet him, but he wasn’t really expecting either of them. He looks into wide amber eyes and feels the breath go out of his lungs in a rush.

His other half touches Kaname’s cheek reverently, with fingers that tremble. Kaname covers his hand with one of his own and holds on.

It’s been a long and lonely life without him, and Kaname has waited every single day for this moment, for this man specifically, and now he can only stand here and soak up the sight of the rest of his life, greedily and with extreme prejudice.

“I’ve waited to meet you for so  _long_ ,” he murmurs, and his soulmate’s breath shudders. He looks as terrified as Kaname feels, and every bit as longing, and  _tragically_ lovely.

Beautiful, Kaname thinks, with both an artist’s eye and a hopeless heart,  _beautiful_.

* * *

Natsume Takashi lives alone, and has always lived alone. Even as a child, he was often by himself. He has no family and no home outside his little one-bedroom apartment, and his only companion is his fat, spoiled cat.  

“I came to this city because it was brand-new to me,” Takashi says, “and I wanted a fresh start.”

He’s unguarded as he speaks into the dimly lit room at large. They’re tucked together on his sofa, the window open to let in the autumn breeze, and Kaname pulls him just a little bit closer.

Takashi is fragile, despite the iron resilience that brought him this far, and devastatingly lonely – and worse than that, accustomed to loneliness.

“I wish I had found you sooner,” Kaname tells him quietly, and feels Takashi lean away just enough to look up at him.

“It’s thanks to you we met at all,” his other half tells him firmly. “I would never have had the nerve to do what you did – to make such a big move, on such a small chance.” He shakes his head, admiring and affectionate as he adds, “You’re amazing, Kaname.”

It’s the first time anyone has told him that. Sickly, shrinking Kaname, who could hardly join in PE more than a dozen times a year, who passed through school like a shadow and relied on his two bright and fiery friends all those times he got lost in the crowd or fumbled up his words, who locked himself in a bathroom stall the day he arrived in this new city and wanted nothing more than to run back home.

But Takashi is smiling up at him without cruelty, honeyed eyes like something out of a fairy tale – and if he’s the one saying it, maybe it’s true after all.

Maybe it  _could_ be true. Maybe, for Takashi, he wants it to be.

* * *

 _“I can’t believe you uprooted your whole life just to chase your heart like a shojo hero,”_  Shibata fumes.  _“You’re ridiculous!”_

“He’s wonderful,” Takashi contests immediately, reaching over to smooth the fringe out of Kaname’s eyes. Kaname feels himself flush hotly and aims a stupid grin at the Skype window open on Kitamoto’s laptop.

Taki’s eyes are shining, her hands folded in front of an impossibly wide smile, and even Shibata can’t maintain his scowl for long.

 _“Ugh, gross,”_ he says, with the hint of a grin.  _“You two deserve each other.”_

 _“Oh, and make sure you send over those pictures of the two of you that you promised me. Don’t give me that look, Tanuma, you_ promised!”

Takashi groans, and Nishimura laughs brightly from the other side of the living room. Ponta waddles over to make himself comfortable in Kaname’s lap, and the apartment smells like the omelets Kitamoto is cooking for dinner, and Kaname’s childhood friends are making plans to come visit sometime soon. Takashi smiles freely more and more with each day, and those smiles make every single minute Kaname waited for this worthwhile.

 _Home_ , Kaname thinks, and this time he means it. 


End file.
